SOS to all Bryston B60 B25 B26 DAC owners - please respond

Thunder · « **Reply #20 on:** 28 Jun 2005, 01:13 pm »

Quote from: pauldixonuk

I personally don't think the front end is the place to tweek, to get the emotion from. I think you want an ultra revealing and totally neutral source, like a benchmark dac1, that will not loose any information too early in the chain. I heard this into some active ATC monitors, which are equally neutral and highly revealing. The result of this pairing is the ONLY part of the audio chain you REALLY hear, or adds personality / colour is the preamp. This makes things much easier, as you forget the rest of the c ...

I agree with you. I believe that my front end is very neutral. Both Meitner and Prism are highly respected pieces of pro gear that reveal "the truth" and partner very well with my Bryston/PMC combo.

I guess my point wasn't clearly enough articulated. What I was trying to say is that within a neutral front end and overall system, there are choices to made, choices that do not color but have slightly different strengths and weaknesses. Don't think of neutral is absolute or something you can't improve upon within your source chain.

Don · « **Reply #21 on:** 29 Jun 2005, 11:49 am »

I had my B60 converted to a B60DAC a year or so ago and like you was hard pressed to hear a difference from my mid line Arcam at first. What I did notice over time when I stopped trying to hear changes was that my entire Red Book collection sounded better overall and my digital source material was more enjoyable ( have alway enjoyed vinyl more and still do ). The Bryston DAC really shines on DVD Audio ( 24/96 ) or some of the other better digital formats.

I would say give it some time before you write off the Bryston, I'm a happy owner at this point in time and my current digital transport is a $ 100.00 DVD Player, can't beat that.

nicolasb · « **Reply #22 on:** 29 Jun 2005, 02:29 pm »

Quote from: Don

The Bryston DAC really shines on DVD Audio ( 24/96 ) or some of the other better digital formats.

What transport and what connection are you using to get a 24/96 DVD-Audio digital stream into the Bryston DAC? DVD-Audio discs are nearly always encrypted, and 5.1-channel 24/96 is beyond the bandwidth capabilities of SP/DIF anyway. There are a couple of proprietary systems that allow this (e.g. Pioneer over Firewire, or Meridian over MHR Smartlink) and I hope to see the industry eventually standardise on HDMI. But otherwise isn't the transport downsampling everything before it gets sent to the DAC?

This is precisely why people like me use a mid-market DVD-Audio player (Arcam FMJ DV27A in my case) with its 5.1 analogue outputs hooked into the 5.1 analogue bypass inputs of an SP1.7.

Don · « **Reply #23 on:** 29 Jun 2005, 07:24 pm »

Quote from: nicolasb

What transport and what connection are you using to get a 24/96 DVD-Audio digital stream into the Bryston DAC? DVD-Audio discs are nearly always encrypted, and 5.1-channel 24/96 is beyond the bandwidth capabilities of SP/DIF anyway. There are a couple of proprietary systems that allow this (e.g. Pioneer over Firewire, or Meridian over MHR Smartlink) and I hope to see the industry eventually standardise on HDMI. But otherwise isn't the transport downsampling everything before it gets sent to the DAC?

Thi ...

Hi-Res Music produces a number of DVD Audio recordings that can be played back on DVD players. Output is directly from the DVD digital out to the Bryston DAC. Most of Hi-Res's releases are from the Concord Label and you are into small combo jazz it's worth a look.

brucek · « **Reply #24 on:** 29 Jun 2005, 09:23 pm »

Quote

mid-market DVD-Audio player (Arcam FMJ DV27A in my case)

I would consider the DV27A a bit better than 'mid-market'.......Maybe average high end.....

brucek

nicolasb · « **Reply #25 on:** 30 Jun 2005, 10:09 am »

"High end" would be a Linn Unidisk player.

nicolasb · « **Reply #26 on:** 30 Jun 2005, 10:17 am »

Quote from: Don

Hi-Res Music produces a number of DVD Audio recordings that can be played back on DVD players. Output is directly from the DVD digital out to the Bryston DAC. Most of Hi-Res's releases are from the Concord Label and you are into small combo jazz it's worth a look.

Most DVD-Audio discs can be played on DVD players, but this is achieved by including a separate Dolby Digital track on the same disc - what you end up hearing is significantly inferior to the "proper" DVD-A recording. Either that, or the player automatically downsamples the signal before sending it to the processor.

I'm not familiar with Hi-Res music in particular, so this may not apply to them. (They may, for example, be DTS 96/24 stereo format rather than DVD-Audio).

But one thing you can be sure of: it is physically impossible to pass a five- or 6-channel 24-bit/96kHz signal from a player to a processor over a standard digital connection. It's possible to send an uncompressed stereo 24/96 signal over a coax connection (just) - but anything higher than that needs a different type of connector and cable (e.g. Firewire, HDMI, MHR Smartlink, etc.)

Rivendell61 · « **Reply #27 on:** 30 Jun 2005, 10:54 am »

There is a page on this subject over at Benchmark's site:
http://benchmarkmedia.com/news/AIXinfo.htm

They mention AIX (and also Silverline, Denon, Chesky, and Telarc) as labels that allow full 24 bit 96/192-khz, i.e., they are 'unprotected'.

They also say they tested a bunch of DVD-A players and only found two which allowed 'bit-perfect' 192khz digital out via coax--both were cheap ($100) players--one a Pioneer the other a Panasonic.

Hope this makes sense....I know nothing of DVD-A....

Mark